So, the hotly anticipated Barbie movie has been released, and it is, from what I hear, a giant rug-pull on par with Puella Magi Madoka Magica, except less pleasing. This thing had a massive ad campaign, so enormous that everyone has been buzzing about it (though I am pleased to say that, Luddite that I am, I never so much as saw a single trailer). Its ad campaign promised that it would be a fun, simple, sugary film full of pink. Instead, it is apparently an over-long feminist lecture that actually uses the word “patriarchy” and expects you to take it seriously. And Ken, instead of being Barbie’s love interest, is the villain.
What most annoys me about this is that so many are shocked by it. Everyone should have learned by now that Hollywood is currently incapable of treating a long-running, much-loved franchise with any kind of respect. Smearing their feces on other people’s creations is part of their religion: They can’t not do it. How many fool-me-once-fool-me-twice situations do we have to go through before all of you finally wise up? Stop watching this crap. The people who make these movies and TV shows hate you, and they also hate the titles they’re adapting. How could a new Barbie adaptation from Hollywood possibly be anything but a hamfisted feminist screed? Barbie, after all, is a perennial boogeyman for feminists.
But if you really need some sugary entertainment featuring airheaded dress-up dolls, the best possible adaptation of Barbie has already been made: A series of short, CGI-animated videos called Barbie: Life in the Dreamhouse was produced by Mattel in 2012. It now lives on Netflix, where it has been rearranged into twelve half-hour episodes. (I know that link is crossed out because WordPress is screwy, but the link works.)
Life in the Dreamhouse does what the current movie should have done: Drawing probably on the depiction of Barbie in the Toy Story movies, it gently pokes fun at the Barbie franchise while also respecting it, its history, and its lore. Appropriately set in a fantasy version of Malibu, it depicts Barbie, along with her family and friends, living in a shockingly pink “Dreamhouse” filled with bewildering and sometimes dangerous gadgets. In a nod to the many different Barbie outfits released over the years, it portrays Barbie as owning a clothes closet so large it threatens to collapse into a black hole, and it also portrays Barbie as a self-styled expert on most every subject because she’s had thousands of different jobs. Barbie is a Mary Sue but without the features that make Mary Sues annoying: She is not a self-insert character, and her perfectness is always played for laughs.
In the new movie, Barbie lives in a world where every woman in named Barbie and evey man is named Ken, but Life in the Dreamhouse remembers that there are other dolls in the franchise, so sisters Skipper and Chelsea are regular characters (Chelsea, in particular, is a series highlight), as are several of Barbie’s friends, all of whom are given distinct and appropriate personality quirks. Most ingenious is the show’s treatment of boyfriend Ken: Although always remembering that Ken is essentially an accessory to Barbie and sometimes poking fun at the fact, Life in the Dreamhouse makes him a kind of idiot savant, a himbo who despite his airheadedness is a gadgeteer genius who inexplicably makes over-complicated Rube Goldberg machines whenever he tries to put together simple devices. Unlike in the movie, in which Ken is Barbie’s underling and ultimately her enemy, the affection between Ken and Barbie in Life in the Dreamhouse is sappy but genuine, exactly as it should be.
Life in the Dreamhouse is silly and saccharine. Its only source of real conflict comes from the twins Raquelle and Ryan, who are constantly trying and failing to separate Ken and Barbie out of jealousy. When Barbie isn’t accidentally foiling Raquelle’s plots, crises come from such things as gadget malfunctions or Malibu suddenly running out of glitter.
It’s genuinely funny, but more importantly, it’s short: Originally, the episodes were five minutes. The last few episodes run nearly a half hour, and they drag a bit as Barbie and her friends overstay their welcome. It’s also, unlike the new movie–which makes raunchy jokes and references to Proust–appropriate for kids. We could perhaps have a serious discussion of whether the airheaded bimbos and superficial lifestyle of Life in the Dreamhouse are really quality children’s entertainment, but at least the humor is child-appropriate, with no references to drugs or genitalia, and no resentment of one sex for the other.
In any case, Life in the Dreamhouse is probably the best version of Barbie-themed entertainment we can hope for. As the new movie suggests, it’s increasingly unlikely that such an innocent and sincere take on a franchise like Barbie can be made anymore. If you were looking forward to Barbie because of the trailers and are disappointed to learn that it’s exactly what you should have already guessed it was, then watch Life in the Dreamhouse instead. It’s probably the best version of Barbie that will ever get made.